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Jenny Yuen, Toronto Sun

Feb 1, 2014

, Last Updated: 3:55 PM ET

No matter how you calculate it, math scores just aren’t adding up.

The number of students who were improving in math by the time they reached Grade 6 provincial testing has decreased from 28% to 17%. Not only that, but merely 52% of Grade 3 and 6 students met the provincial standard of 75% — or a B grade — from 2010 to 2013 in numeracy tests.

It’s a startling decline found in this year’s Fraser Institute Elementary School Report Card, based on data from province-wide test results in literacy and numeracy administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office, and whose analysis suggests “students who do not meet the provincial standard early in their schooling ... are much more likely to carry those difficulties” into high school.

“The thing that’s in the news now is whether Canada is falling apart in math,” said the Fraser Institute’s Peter Cowley, who co-authored this report.

“If you believe like many people do that the stem skills (science, technology, engineering and math) are the key skills for this century, then you have to be concerned with the capacity of our kids to develop a strong, basic level of understanding of mathematical principles and practice,” said Cowley.